What is Global Sustainable Development?

"Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs".

Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future, 1987

With the world’s population predicted to grow from six to ten billion between the years 2000 to 2050, the next few decades are set to witness significant transformations in economic growth, international relations, human development, biodiversity, human health, and social justice. As these transformations take place, the United Nations has outlined 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), designed to empower governments, businesses, and individuals to work collectively towards a prosperous future for all.

These SDGs strike a balance between the critical theoretical questions of why inequality exists, whilst also demanding an unequivocal global response through policy and practice. We might, for example, consider why UNESCO predicts that 1.8 billion people are expected to live with absolute water scarcity by 2025. What economic, environmental, and social currents have given rise to this crisis? And what practical steps can be taken to solve it?

Each SDG has a clear and measurable aim, designed to rebalance a particular global inequality, but they are all intimately linked to each other. The shift towards affordable and clean energy (SDG 7), for example, cannot be achieved without considering the effect on industry, innovation, and infrastructure (SDG 9). Jeffrey Sachs, a leading voice in the movement for global sustainable development, sums this up well:

“Taken as a whole package, the SDGs are meant to orient the world in clear, specific, measurable, concise, and understandable ways to help the world to make the shift from business as usual...to a new trajectory of sustainable development.”

Jeffrey Sachs, The Age of Sustainable Development (2015) p.489.

In order to secure “a new trajectory of sustainable development”, we need inspired leaders in all sectors of society, all across the world. From working in a small local conservation charity, to issuing policy advice for an international engineering firm, having a dedicated knowledge of the issues surrounding sustainable development has never been more valuable. To study GSD is to arm yourself with this knowledge and participate in the movement for a more equal, prosperous and sustainable future. That journey can begin here with us at The University of Warwick.

The first undergradute BASc Global Sustainable Development programmes in the United Kingdom. Learn more.

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Global Sustainable Development
R3.23, Ramphal Building, School of Cross-faculty Studies
University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom